Oh, yes, that was a well-deserved win! And it was unanimous for Cochran...Dawn's playing the Mommy card didn't win her a single vote. I think that was the best final tribal council the show has ever had. What a surprise Sherri the Cipher turned out to be, not only a self-made millionaire in her own right but also squashing poor dim Erik like a bug. This was a good game.

I thought Cochran had made a mistake when he kept Dawn and voted Eddie out, but he knew what he was doing. For one thing, the other two "amigos" would have voted for Eddie, not him. For another, Dawn had offended a lot of people but Eddie hadn't. I liked Cochran's characterization of Eddie as a 23-year-old chauvinistic idiot. It was a good win.

Cochran was still playing the game right through the final council; he was never on the defensive the way the two women were. Look at the way he handled Malcolm, who asked what Cochran had that he didn't that put Cochran in the final three instead of himself. Cochran's answer of "insecurity" (the way it made him pay careful attention to everybody's reactions, etc.) was followed by what was almost a throwaway line to the effect that he could never imagine Malcolm feeling insecure. In other words -- you alpha, me omega. You think Malcolm didn't like hearing that? Cochran nailed his vote right then and there.

Yes he is. He's certainly been the most articulate player ever to appear on the show, and he obviously learned from his first experience playing the game. Nerd control...I love it. I hope Jeff Probst is over his love affair with the Hantz family, and that he'll not bring back Phillip or Malcolm again. It would be nice to see a game with all new faces.

James Spader is returning to series TV this fall, in a show called The Blacklist. His youthful good looks are just a memory now...thickening waist, pattern baldness. But the style is still there, and the presence. NBC has a couple of promotional videos: The Blacklist. The show has the look of a big-budget movie, as far as I could tell from the videos.